Albacores, Lasers, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Flying Scots, Lightnings, Lasers, Announcements, News

DISC Three Bridges Fiasco on Saturday, July 13!

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Greetings all,

We’ve got 5 dinghies registered for the DISC 3 Bridges Fiasco race this Saturday.  Who else is interested?  If you need crew, or are looking to crew, don’t forget about the “Crew Connection” (link on our PRSA Homepage).  Fleet Captains: please forward this reminder to your Fleet listservs.  This is a really fun race and the weather forecast for Saturday looks promising.

The NOR and the registration link are both posted at https://discsailing.org/ (scroll down a bit to the “Upcoming Events/Registration” area.  The SIs will be posted soon.

I’m also including here some informaton from DISC Commodore PEte Fanta, who will also run the RC on Saturday.  From Pete:

  • “I will be the RC for the Three Bridges this weekend.  The RC boat will be the Georgetown Sailing Team Boat. My intention is to follow in the powerboat, as best as possible, the majority of boats around the course to render assistance as needed.
  • The start times will be set using Portsmouth Handicaps on a Pursuit Race.  This means the slowest boat will start first and can sail the course designated in either direction, as long as they round the correct marks.  The fastest boat will start last.  When we do this with only the PHRF boats, there can be as much as a 15 minute gap between first starter and last starter. The boat finishing first across the line after sailing the course…wins.  The appropriate ratings are taken into account by the start times.  This method allows us to sail a Laser against an Albacore, against a Flying Scot, against an S2 7.9.  I understand that in some conditions certain boats are hard to beat, but that is the nature of handicap racing.
  • SIs will be posted soon.”

I hope to see you out on the water on Saturday!

Cheers,

Aaron

Lightnings, News, Results

2024 Lightning Dixie District Championships & 38th Annual Potomac Cup Regatta

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This double-header regatta was held at Leesylvania State Park on June 29 and 30 where the Potomac is 2.5 miles wide!

Six races were scheduled and completed in solid 10-15 mph breezes.  Well, it went light in one race which challenged the sailors as the boats had to choose the best VMG angles downwind.

Trevor Prior and team from the Susquehanna Yacht Club won.   PRSA’s own Aaron Boesenecker with Rick Welch and Lisbet Kugler were second.  Joe Buczkowski and team were third.

PRO Nelson Pemberton, mark boat captain, Barney Harris,  and team set up the courses and ran the races.  Dan Trammel, our judge, ran a redress hearing and provided anyone who asked with help interpreting the rules, Thank you!

Red Fehrle and Suzanne Humphrey prepared a steak and salmon dinner for us while we were out racing.  Lindsay Bach, Sheila Campbell, Maryann Gallagher, Christy Chen and many others brought sides to complement the main course.  Frank Gallagher and Pam Maple brought breakfast to get the sailors going.

Jim Dillard was one of the forces behind the creation of Leesylvania State Park back in the 1970s. And he made sure it was sailboat friendly with two cranes for launching out boats.  It is now the home of a sailing school.    Jim was there competing at age 90 in the latest of his series of green Lightnings with his son-in-law Justin and daughter Christy as crew.

Yuengling was again the sponsor of our regatta and we appreciate that continued support.

Results:

2024-Dixie-Districts-Days 1 & 2

Spring Series, Albacores, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Fleets, Lightnings, Spring Series, Results

2024 PRSA Spring Series #7, #8, and Whole Series

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Dane Pederson and team ran Spring Series #7.

John Van Voorhis and team ran Spring Series #8.  A front came through and we had a westerly with strong gust from the northwest and a strong current running out.  A line of thunderstorms caused the RC to send us home after two races.  The storms broke up but its better to be safe rather than sorry.

Key Rules for Scoring the Series:

  • For the series total, I asked the program to exclude each sailor’s worst 50% of races — if there were 13 races, 6 were excluded.
  • If you registered on shore but did not start a race you should get the number of finishers + 2.
  • If you started a race but did not finish you should get the number of finishers + 1.
  • If you did not sign up on shore and did not race, you get the number registered in the series + 1.

Spring Series #7 (June 2) 

2024-SS7-Albacore

2024-SS7-Buccaneer

2024-SS7-I20

2024-SS7-Laser

2024-SS7-Lightning

Spring Series #8 (June 9)

2024-SS8-Albacore

2024-SS8-I20

2024-SS8-Lightning

Spring Series Total

2024-SS-Albacore

2024-SS-Buccaneer

2024-SS-I20

2024-SS-Lightning

Albacores, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Flying Scots, Results

2024 PRSA Spring Regatta – Final Results

Spring Regatta racers had a great two days on the water!  Yesterday winds ranged from 10-15mph and were ideal Potomac conditions for five races.  Albacores, however, earned the eye flag for their starts after two general recalls to start the day – currents pushed many boats across the line and were strong both days.  Today we fit in one race before winds emptied to then fill in from the South after we got off the water.  There was a lot of paddling and taking advantage of the airplane wash to get back to shore.

Albacore-final

Buccaneer-final

Flying Scot-final

I-20-final

Albacores, SI's & NOR's, Lasers, Buccaneers, Inland-20s, Flying Scots, Lightnings, Lasers, Regattas

PRSA Spring Regatta May 25-26

Registration is open for the PRSA Spring Regatta!  Sign up now and help us spread the word about our signature spring event:  https://www.nextsailor.com/app/page/regatta/672.

If you are interested in volunteering to help out with some regatta organization, please let Regatta Chair Kaitlyn Lucey know.  This is a great chance to get involved with one of our events, learn more about regatta organization and operation, and help out PRSA!

Lightnings, News

2024 Spring Series #4

Just not the right day for sailing today. Rain, current, debris, and very light wind caused us to cancel all the racing today.

And even after the rain pretty much stopped we wouldn’t have been able to sail as the wind dropped from light to nothing.

But Piercarlo, Dane, and John had their boats ready to go. Nabeel & Frank were there as well working on revitalizing the Fleet 50 website. And Aaron was there to sail w’ Piercarlo & Lisbet

I had RC.

We are kind of having a bad run of weather this spring. This was the 4th Sunday, half way through the Spring Series and so far we have only completed 5 races. The good news here is those who have yet to come out aren’t behind in the series. See everyone next Sunday!

Bobby Astrove

Lightnings, News

2024 Spring Series #1, #2, and #3

Spring Series #1 was a windy chilly day.  Stew Harris and team started off the four intrepid sailors on a W2.   Only Barney and Justin Harler finished the race.   And that was it.

Spring Series #2 was a light light day.  Aaron Boesenecker and team were lucky to give us one W1.

Spring Series #3 started off light but the wind gradually filled in with the sail home after the four W2 that Dana Howe and team gave us being downright beautiful.

2024-SS1-Albacore

2024-SS1-I20

2024-SS1-Lightning

2024-SS2-Albacore

2024-SS2-Buccaneer

2024-SS2-I20

2024-SS2-Lightning

2024-SS3-Albacore

2024-SS3-Buccaneer

2024-SS3-I20

2024-SS3-Lightning

Announcements

PRSA Spring Series: Important Information!

The PRS Spring Series is underway!    Please make sure that you’ve registered for the series, signed up for spring RC dates, and read through the rest of the information included below.  Please don’t hesitate to let us know (prsaboard@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

  • Sign up for Race Committee: Skippers must fulfill RC obligations in each series that they wish to be scored in Frostbite, Spring or Fall. Skippers that do not sign up for at least half their slots before the series begins may not be scored for the series. PRO still counts as 2 slots. Starting this season, Skippers must fill 2 slots in the Spring and 2 slots in Fall. This changes the practices of doing all your RC in one series and racing in the other–a change that was requested at the AGM. Skippers may carry over 1 RC slot from the Spring to the Fall series. Non-Lasers Skippers must fill 2 slots for the Spring Series (Lasers only 1).
  • Post-Race Potluck: we will be grilling in the grove after racing on each Sunday.  We encourage your friends and family to join us for these BYO post-race BBQs!  Hanging out around the grill is a great opportunity to reconnect with everybody and perhaps even introduce some new folks to PRSA.  Please remember to bring something for you and your crew for the grill and to drink.
  • Sail Upcycling: we will collect used sails for the Sea Bags sail upcycling program on April 14th.  If you have used sails that you want to donate, bring them to the marina and drop them at drysail slip C-17 (Stas Burgiel’s I-20).  PRSA receives a tool bag or tote bag made from each donated sail that we can use or sell (and the rest of each sail is sold by Sea Bags in support of various good causes in sailing).  Now is a good time to clear out that inventory of old sails and support a good cause in doing so!
  • Email lists: now is a good time to make sure that you and your crew are subscribed to all of the relevant email lists.  If you are receiving this note, you are on the PRSA Google Group (potomacriversailing@googlegroups.com) but you should also make sure that your crew or others you sail with are members.  Instructions on joining are on our website: https://potomacriversailing.org/contact-page/.  You should also make sure that you are on your fleet email list (reach out to your fleet captain for info).

Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.  I look forward to seeing everybody on the water and then at the post-race BBQ (along with your friends and family!) on April 14!